Schacht Shocks

With his stout, placid wife, with his sleek son Jens, famed Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht landed at Manhattan last week, the same tall, abrupt, brawny stickler that Germans sent to contend with Owen D. Young at the Paris Reparations Conference (TIME, Jan. 14, 1929 et seq.). Though no longer president of the Reichsbank (he resigned in a huff last spring after Britain's Chancellor Snowden had forced certain changes in the Young Plan), Dr. Schacht is still the German moneyman par excellence, will lecture on his specialty to bankers & businessmen throughout the U. S. Surveying Manhattan's famed skyline he barked:

"I shall place my son Jens in a Chicago bank. Chicago is more typically American. Ja, a city without harbor mentality."

Asked whether Germany is headed for a "Hitler Revolution," Dr. Schacht scowled. "There are some who want to change the Constitution," he said darkly. "I myself do!" (He used to be mentioned as a possible financial Dictator.) "But legally, by the ballot. If the German people are going to starve, there are going to be many more Hitlers. You must not think that if you treat a people for ten years as the German people have been treated they will continue to smile. How would you like to be kept in jail for ten years? Tell your people that. Every one is crying the Ger mans must be reasonable. I tell you the world must become reasonable. We are!"

In a formal address next day to the New York Board of Trade for German-American commerce, Dr. Schacht shocked hold ers of Reparations bonds nearly as much as has Herr Hitler. "Ridiculous opinions exist as to Germany's ability to pay," he snapped. "There is no doubt that one day the moratorium provided in the Young Plan will be declared!" It was this which drew from German Chancellor Heinrich Bruening hot denial that he plans a moratorium (see col. 1); rather he plans a new loan.

Dr. Schacht pointed out that Germany has borrowed since 1924 nearly twice what she has paid in Reparations, but he added as a loyal German: "I believe that Chan cellor Bruening g means to say by the new loan from this country [the U. S.], 'Here is the very last chance to give Germany an opportunity to earn the Reparation payments through mutual cooperation without calling on the moratorium.' And, gentlemen, the Reparation problem must either be solved or disappear."

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